Running a Sata and an IDE HDD?

[Shafra]

I'm currently running a WD 250GB Sata Drive, and I have a WD 75GB IDE drive on hand that I would like to use as well, I actually want to run my P2P software on the IDE drive.

I'm assuming this can be done, but will I need to do anything special?

I'm guessing Sata will always default to master? Will I need to do anything to the jumpers on the IDE drive? I have 2 ID ports on the motherboard. On IDE 1 setup as the master is my DVD drive. Would I plug the IDE hard disk into the slave portion of IDE 1 cable, or set it up as master on IDE 2?

Any help is appreciated, I decided to just post before I even try anything so I don't mess anything up

 

[Apokalipse]

the IDE drive will be assigned a drive letter before the SATA drives, but you can still easily run windows from the SATA drive.

 

[Shafra]

Will I need to do anything, or will the system just recognize the sata drive as the boot drive and load up normally?

Just curious to know if I need to adjust jumpers on the IDE HDD, what cable I should connect it too, and if I will need to adjust any settings in the BIOS such as boot sequence.

 

[Apokalipse]

Will I need to do anything, or will the system just recognize the sata drive as the boot drive and load up normally?

Just curious to know if I need to adjust jumpers on the IDE HDD, what cable I should connect it too, and if I will need to adjust any settings in the BIOS such as boot sequence.

You don't have to have a special configuration for the IDE drive. If the SATA drive is the only one with an Operating System on it, it will boot from that.
If there is an Operating System on the IDE drive, you can just set the SATA drive as first boot device in the CMOS setup.

 

[Shafra]

Excellent, thanks Apok.

The IDE drive may have an OS on it, I forget.

Any good programs I can use to format my IDE drive once inside Windows? Something simple is preferred, I'm still pretty much a novice

 

[Apokalipse]

Excellent, thanks Apok.

The IDE drive may have an OS on it, I forget.

Any good programs I can use to format my IDE drive once inside Windows? Something simple is preferred, I'm still pretty much a novice

Okay, once you turn the computer on, it should say something like "press del to enter setup"

Usually, they use del. Sometimes they use F1, or esc.

Just press whatever button it is, and you'll get to the CMOS setup.
Using the CMOS setup, you can choose which device you want to boot from.

Anyway, once you are in Windows, go to start -> run
run "diskmgmt.msc" (without the quotes)

You can format the hard drive using that.

 

[Shafra]

Thanks again Apok I set the Sata as Boot Device 1 and the IDE as # 2. Booted normal, once in windows I did get an error that the drive was unable to be installed. I looked in Explorer and the drive was there, and I was able to use it. It did appear to have a windows installation on it, so I right clicked it and selected format. After that, I rebooted, this time XP detected and gave me no error message. Seems to be working just fine.

Should I be good now, or is there anything else I should have or should do?

Thanks!

 

[Apokalipse]

Thanks again Apok I set the Sata as Boot Device 1 and the IDE as # 2. Booted normal, once in windows I did get an error that the drive was unable to be installed. I looked in Explorer and the drive was there, and I was able to use it. It did appear to have a windows installation on it, so I right clicked it and selected format. After that, I rebooted, this time XP detected and gave me no error message. Seems to be working just fine.

Should I be good now, or is there anything else I should have or should do?

Thanks!

No, you shouldn't have to do anything now (except maybe use the drive)

 

[Ancalime]

Hey I have a similar situation but am unfortunately even more newb. I have a 120 GB IDE drive on my dell desktop and am about to upgrade to a new computer. I am planning to buy a WD 120 GB hard drive except it will be SATA instead of IDE. I just have a few questions..

- When running with two different interfaces, will there be any problems or formatting that has to be done?

- Is a RAID setup necessary when running two hard drives?

- Is RAID advisable in my situation? If so, which level of RAID. I am not so worried about RAID 0 destroying my data but would there be a significant boost in performance in my situation?

- What is the best way to go about completely erasing a hard drive. I wish to completely clear out the IDE drive (including Windows XP) and have it be fresh.

Sorry for these newbie questions. Help is appreciated. Thanks in advance.

 

[Shafra]

Hmm, think I can answer these now

You absolutely can run both, no problem at all.
No to RAID.

I advise this. When you get your new hard disk, connect only that SATA drive and install XP to it etc etc.

Next, connect your older IDE drive. When you turn on your PC after installing it, enter the BIOS. Inside the BIOS, go to the boot setup and set your SATA drive as a boot device BEFORE the IDE drive. Now, once in XP it will detect your IDE hard disk and assign it a drive letter. Using explorer right click over your IDE drive and you can select format right there, either quick or full. (May as well do full) And there you go

If anything I said was in error, feel free to correct me, but since this is exactly what I just did, I think you'll be fine. When I went into windows for whatever reason Windows didn't detect my IDE drive correctly, but I could still see it and format it. After that, a simple reboot and all was detected properly.

Good luck